Football, Ducks, Unhappiness

Last Friday morning I set my alarm for 2:50 am and managed to get myself in front of the television in time for the kickoff of the Pats-Raiders game. It ran long enough that Molli woke up in time to catch the last few moments with me. (She’s not looking toward the television here, but that’s not the point. The point is that I got to watch the first football game of the season with my daughter.)

But all that football stuff isn’t taking any of her femininity away. We haven’t been putting her in very many dresses, but we dressed her up on Saturday to have a birthday dinner for Trine at mormor’s.

Mormor arranged things so that Molli could enjoy the meal with the rest of us by seating her directly on the table. This enabled her to be at eye-level with the rest of us. It also allowed her to grab all the Danish table flags in her vicinity and destroy them. (The crumpled bits of red paper to the right of Molli are the remains of the flag formerly attached to the stick in her hands.)

After the meal we went for a stroll. Molli seemed to know it was way past her bedtime and seemed to be getting an extra kick out of just being awake.

Sunday afternoon we took her for a stroll down to the lakes. About two-thirds of the way there she became suddenly fussy and miserable. We were passing a tiny little playground—two swings and a slide in the middle of a glorified traffic island—and thought we might be able to cheer her up with a ging-gang interval.

The tactic worked, though you can’t really see how happy she is in this picture. You can, however, see that it’s a normal swing, and to the best of my knowledge it was her very first time ever on a “grown-up” style swing.

Naturally we had to visit the infernal birds once we got to the lakes.

Molli liked looking at the birds with her mother, but she was also a little wary.

But her wariness didn’t last long. I don’t have it in still photos, but eventually you’ll see video of Molli straining to run into the lake as Trine holds the back of her shirt to restrain her—stretching the shirt so much she’ll probably be able to wear it until she’s 10. The closest thing we’ve got to that enthusiasm is this still picture of Molli making her first approach to the water (and the birds).

The last few pictures are all from yesterday, I think. Molli was not very happy yesterday, and we blame ourselves: Monday evening (Trine’s birthday) we went to see Joe Cocker up in Hillerød, so we dropped Molli with mormor at around five o’clock. The next morning mormor brought her straight to Vuggestue. So we didn’t actually see Molli again until we picked her up at 3:15 Tuesday afternoon—and we had to go shopping. By the time we got home she was making it very clear she was unhappy about something, if not us. There was no pleasing her, and she was doing a lot of the headbanging that’s so awful to see. (Not in any kind of maniacal or self-destructive way, just more than the usual novelty-banging she does when she’s sleepy, bored, or impatient.)

And yet, to see these pictures you’d assume she was a doll all afternoon:

The playhouse in the next shot just appeared in the courtyard last week. Molli loves it. Mainly she likes to go in, open the little toy chest inside, and either put things in it or take things out of it. Or just open and close it. And sometimes she climbs on the toy chest and seems to be contemplating what would happen if she were to propel herself out the window. (I usually station myself by the window to discourage her from such experimentation.)

They’re still working on our damn walls, by the way, but they seem to be nearing completion. We’re looking forward to the day when we can have a conversation in the kitchen without worrying about some guy listening in from the scaffolding. And can walk from the shower to the bedroom without a towel.

The window just to the right of the top of the fencepost in the middle foreground of this picture is our bedroom: the two windows to its left are, moving leftward, Molli’s bedroom and the kitchen. (The living and dining rooms are on the other side of the apartment, and the bathroom has no windows.)

Lastly, a mostly bad, blurry photo of me and Molli enjoying a little ging-gang.

I should mention that she seemed to be in a much better mood this morning, even though she woke up at 6:30. She had a big full breakfast, was her usual smiling and curious self, and even managed to spend a little time wandering around with the mixing bowl on her head, bumping into things. She was enjoying herself immensely when we left her at Vuggestue, and hopefully she’ll be happy when we pick her up. She has her weekly swim with Trine tonight, and I may sneak over to catch the end of the class with camera in hand. (I still haven’t seen her dunk or dive yet.)